Sleepwalk…

I’ve spent the past two weeks seesawing between a state of rajas (erratic, fiery) and tamas (lethargic, heavy). This obviously goes against the whole “observant, detached, steadiness of mind” yoga thing. Part of it may be just plain old sadness. Change of seasons, seeing friends move away, finding out that a dear friend and new father is going through a divorce, realizing that you can plan life all you want, but sometimes life will defy you with others agendas. 

A dear, inspiriting friend of mine made an astute observation recently: “sometimes when it feels like everything’s going wrong or circumstances are ganging up on you, it’s ok to just stand back and let it happen. Let it go. Let it pass.”

Up until I read today’s sutra, I hadn’t realized that I’d been trying to sleep through this phase of BS as it passes through my horizon. It may be time to wake up now.

1.10 ABHAVAPRATYAYALAMBANA TAMOVRTTIRNIDRA

When the mind is overcome with heaviness, or no other activities are present, deep sleep occurs. 

What have you been sleeping through?

Funniest article on this subject I’ve ever read. 

By Sarah Miller

In addition to being somewhat crazy – a shrink once diagnosed me with borderline personality disorder, which I thought was a bit of a stretch until I realised that, like everyone else, he just wanted to have sex with me – I am a yoga teacher. Should you, recoiling in horror as you read this, find yourself asking, “But how does someone like this become a yoga teacher?”, the short answer is that I gave a man with a beard and his hot wife $3,200. The long answer is … well, I’d like to say that it’s because if I hadn’t become obsessed with yoga I’d probably be dead, because that’s what people always say about things like this. But that would be, frankly, a little overdramatic. Let’s just say that if I didn’t do yoga everything bad about me would just be worse, and what is bad is already bad enough.

A few years ago, I tried researching carrying angles because I’d just discovered that my Fiona Apple arms, while coveted by the NYC fashion set, were less than ideal for going up into inversions and kicking asana in arm balances. In fact, many women I know hate any “arm” poses because, according to them:

• “I have weak arms”
• “I have bad wrists”
• “I have bad shoulders”
• “I’m too heavy”

While of course, any and all of the above may be the case, more often than not, the culprit can be elbows that are naturally out of alignment.

If you look at this picture above (of my teacher, Natasha), you’ll notice that her shoulders are directly over her elbows, which are directly over her wrists. So how do we (myself included) carrying angle folk deal with this problem without suffering with pain constantly?

Well, we have more work to do than the average person in asana—especially in vinyasas. But it is possible. It’s just complicated. Oh and avoid using a mirror from the profile, because with a carrying angle, your arms will NEVER look straight (to do that you end up having to hyperextend, a big nono). You will look stacked from the front however.

Here is my inner dialog EVERYTIME I get on my mat and use my arms in any way, but let’s use Adho Mukha Svanasana (downward facing dog) as an example. 

Tip, try this with a strap (premeasured to exactly shoulder distance apart) right above your elbows:

• come into Down Dog
• wrists exactly shoulder distance apart
• your carrying angle will make you look “bow-legged” in the arms, with elbows coming in closer than your wrists and shoulders
• to counter this, press into the space between your thumbs and index fingers and resist the mat by lifting your forearms
• PUSH YOUR ELBOWS OUT AND IMAGINE STRETCHING OUT THE STRAP
• to protect your shoulders, press your triceps slightly in, and release the traps (the muscles at the back, base of your neck/top of your shoulders) wide and away from your ears

These complicated actions took me a long time to remember, but now it’s like second nature—but I’m human and forgot them the other day. So guess what happened? My elbow bowed in too much (hyperextending) and I yanked my ulnar nerve, which put me out of arms poses for a while. My pinky and ring finger were tingly/numb, and it constantly felt like I hit my “funny bone”.

This is why It’s also very important to not let your elbows (regardless of whether you have a carrying angle or not) bow in or out, always keep them in line with the shoulders and wrists. So many of us lose this precision in chaturganga, low push up pose.

Final Tip: Most often, the wrists are in pain because you dump the weight on them, not strengthening the rest of your arm muscles enough. Try using “gripitz” , these great props that teach your arms the right actions with less risk on the wrists. 

Happy arm balancing!

Astavakrasana, wahoo!

His form is perfect, the shoulders are in perfect chaturanga—i.e. he can hold this pose for a while.

Hahahahaha

Swimming Dancer—Natarajasana